LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Of all the moments in last night's presidential debate, this one is getting a lot of chatter - Donald Trump accusing Haitian migrants in Ohio of eating people's pets.
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DONALD TRUMP: In Springfield, they're eating the dogs - the people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people that live there.
FADEL: So what was that all about? NPR's Sergio Martínez-Beltrán covers immigration, and he's here to fact-check Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris on their claims. Good morning.
SERGIO MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN, BYLINE: Good morning.
FADEL: So last night, we watched Trump try to push the discussion back to illegal immigration, no matter the question from moderators. So let's start with this debunked pet-eating claim that Trump amplified on the debate stage. Where did this even come from?
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Right. I mean, that was quite a statement he made, right?
FADEL: Yeah.
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: And it's a false one. It's a lie. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have been spreading this debunked claim. It's part of a racist narrative they've been using about migrants being criminals and, quote, "poisoning the blood of the nation." As NPR reported, Springfield, Ohio, has seen an influx of some 20,000 migrants in the last four years, many from Haiti.
FADEL: Right.
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Lots of businesses have welcomed the Haitians as part of the labor force. Many are there legally. But the influx has created tensions in the city, especially over housing and schools. My NPR colleagues have reported that the false claim of Haitians eating pets started on a far-right social platform. Members of a white supremacist group picked it up. And despite police and city officials in Springfield saying there's simply no evidence of this, Trump and his vice presidential pick, JD Vance, continue spreading the rumors as fact.
FADEL: Now, Trump also repeatedly claimed crime is up because unauthorized migrants coming to the U.S. are on some kind of crime rampage. Sergio, is that true?
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: No, that's also not true. You know, overall violent crime, including murders, are down in the country after an increase in 2020. That's according to the FBI. And research shows immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than the U.S.-born people. So again, there's no migrant crime wave.
FADEL: Now, let's turn to Vice President Harris. Illegal crossings were up through most of Biden and Harris' tenure. That is true. But the numbers are down over the last six months after the White House implemented asylum restrictions at the border. Did Harris explain why the administration only took action in an election year?
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: She did not. You know, Leila, she largely dodged that question. Instead, she blamed Trump for getting Republicans to kill a bipartisan border reform bill.
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VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: That bill would have put more resources to allow us to prosecute transnational criminal organizations for trafficking in guns, drugs and human beings. But you know what happened to that bill? Donald Trump got on the phone, called up some folks in Congress and said, kill the bill.
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: And it was killed. Trump has taken credit for that. Last night, Trump repeatedly blamed Harris and Biden for record levels of illegal migration. He called Harris a border czar and said she was basically responsible for the border crisis. But she was never a border czar, right? She was charged with looking at the root causes of migration from Central America.
FADEL: Right. So what details, if any, did we hear from Harris about her own immigration reform plans if she were president?
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: She did not offer any details. Besides attacking Trump for killing the border bill, Harris didn't propose anything like a plan. And we know, Leila, that immigration is more than border security, right? It's about refugees. It's about visas. It's about offering paths to citizenship and Harris missed that opportunity.
FADEL: What about Trump?
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Well, for his part, Trump again doubled down on his false claims about a wide-open border and criminals flooding into America.
FADEL: And we didn't hear a plan then?
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: No, we did not.
FADEL: NPR's Sergio Martínez-Beltrán. Thank you.
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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